Diane Ladd, Actress And Mother, Passes Away At 89
Image Source: Movie Fone
Diane Ladd, a three-time Oscar nominee, has passed away at age eighty-nine, from a respiratory disorder. Ladd was born in Mississippi in 1935, a relative of Tennessee Williams; the craft was in her blood. In her teens, she gambled away a law scholarship at Louisiana State University for a career in the arts. After performing in several shows locally, Ladd headed for New York and its active theatre scene. She tread the boards with stars on the rise, including Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda.
She landed her first small TV role in 1957 in the crime drama series Decoy and would continue to work steadily in crime shows like Deadline, Ironside, and Perry Mason. She first stepped foot on a film set in 1961 as a bit part in the psychological thriller Something Wild, but her big break wouldn’t come until 1974, when controversial director Roman Polanski cast her as Ida Sessions in Chinatown. The movie was a smash hit and cleaned up critically and at the box office. Diane Ladd learned to make the best out of smaller parts, becoming a scene stealer, the consummate character actor.
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Image Source: EW
A year later, she teamed up with another legendary director, Martin Scorsese. Diane Lad’s exceptional performance as Flo was recognised by the Academy, the BAFTAs, and the Golden Globes. Her second Oscar nomination came for the quirky '90s movie Rambling Rose. Her daughter, Laura Dern (best known for Jurassic Park), played the title character and also picked up a nomination. Neither walked away with a golden statue, but it was an exceptional year for actresses, running against Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs and Thelma and Louise.
Her daughter proved to be a good luck charm, as her third Oscar nomination was also a collaboration. Wild at Heart, directed by surrealist David Lynch (best known for Eraserhead) was packed with a host of other stars, including Willem Dafoe, Isabella Rossellini, and Nicholas Cage. Diane Lad got to work with another iconic director in the 1989 Christmas classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, where she played Nora Griswald in John Hugh’s slapstick comedy.
Lad returned to television in her later years, not only taking cameos in series like Young Sheldon and ER. But she settled on long-running show Chesapeake Shores, where she played Nell O’Brien up to the show’s fifth and final season. Diane Lad retired from the industry in 2022 after sixty-five years working in film and television.
Diane’s husband was Robert Charles Hunter, former head of Pepsico Food Systems. He also sadly passed away just three months ago.
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